


Bruchzeichen

by ungefug



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Art History, Bottom Hannibal Lecter, Cannibalism, Dialogue Heavy, Hannibal Lecter is a Cannibal, Hannibal is a comedy, I hate dichotomies but I understand it helps one find content tailored to one's preferences so..., M/M, Palermo, Pining, Pretentious, Sexual Orientation, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, italian adventures, or the opposite of pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:42:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 12,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29157567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ungefug/pseuds/ungefug
Summary: There is something so primal about the act of eating one's enemies and lovers. Hannibal’s civilized manners, his love for all things refined - Bach on the harpsichord, lièvre à la royale, Gainsborough silk ties, enamel cufflinks, Bauhaus armchairs, Cabernet Franc icewine and Japanese flower arrangements - could not hide the fact that he engaged in beastly conduct, that his urges were essentially subhuman, a relic from the dark recesses of evolution.━Inspired by Bedelia's struggle to live with Hannibal and imagining Will in her place.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 7
Kudos: 40





	1. Prologue (A Nightmare)

**Author's Note:**

> _Bruchzeichen _(German for branch signs, lit. breaking signs) are signs made with branches broken off a suitable native tree species (fir, spruce, pine, oak or alder tree) that are traditionally used by hunters for communication during the hunt such as warning of a trap or marking the spot where an animal was wounded.__

When Will has visions of them together, engaged in sexual intercourse, he is never participating in them, never perceiving the situation as himself, never as Hannibal. He is always merely observing the act from a cold and scrutinizing distance.

Sitting at the far end of the long table in the dining room of their Palermo apartment, he sees himself at the other end, bent over the edge of the table, his trousers at his ankles, bottom exposed. It is a seemingly spontaneous but well meditated act of barbarity. His half-finished plates have been pushed out of the way, dark meat and brown sauce are spilled on the smooth cherry wood surface, smeared like faeces. His wine glass is crushed under his torso, the front of his white shirt dyed red. A puddle of wine is spilling out from under him and dripping down the edge of the table. He is dressed up for the occasion, hair slicked back, clean shaven and wearing his best shirt, the one Hannibal had picked out for him. Hannibal is standing behind him, holding him down by the neck and by the hip, hands tight as a vice, choking him. And like some wild beast he is thrusting into him, hurting him. 

He feels neither fear nor arousal at the sight. He barely even feels like that is him there, sodomized over dinner. A reversal of roles, imagining himself in Hannibal’s place would not make Will more erotically invested. Maybe at his angriest it would have given him satisfaction to wrap two hands around Hannibal’s throat and ram his cock up his arse, fuck him and squeeze his neck until the light left his eyes, but even in this situation the addition of genital copulation seems simply redundant.

Will is in control of the vision, not Hannibal. He can easily replace him, as a thought experiment. He puts Alana in Hannibal’s place. Now her soft hips are grinding into his, slow and sensually. She pulls him up in a close embrace, pulling him to her chest. Her hair falls in dark waves over his shoulder. He watches from the other end of the table, sees her planting possessive kisses on his neck, sees himself stretching into it with a wanton moan. He can almost feel the soft outline of her belly in the small of his back, her firm breasts pushed against his shoulders, the tickle of her pubes, the wetness between her legs. It would be simpler like that.

Hannibal slams his face back onto the table. When Will looks up again, he is bleeding from his nose in an aesthetically pleasing fashion, blood running over his lips, dripping from his chin onto the messy surface. Then Hannibal is holding him by the hair again, dragging his face through the filth as he slams into him. He is on the brink of orgasm, animal grunting in the awkward silence of the room, losing his ever so treasured control and Will is just waiting for it to end. This is the vision of a breaking point, a crack in the marble visage.

There is something so primal about the act of eating one's enemies and lovers. Hannibal’s civilized manners, his love for all things refined - Bach on the harpsichord, lièvre à la royale, Gainsborough silk ties, enamel cufflinks, Bauhaus armchairs, Cabernet Franc icewine and Japanese flower arrangements - could not hide the fact that he engaged in beastly conduct, that his urges were essentially subhuman, a relic from the dark recesses of evolution.


	2. Venison

“Buon appetito,” Hannibal said. It was dark in their dining room and the dim candle light played on his features, drawing his smile into an ever harsher line. He did not eat, but he watched Will expectantly.

Will looked down at his plate. On a dull piece of slate in a puddle of red sauce sat a small cube of dark brown meat. It was cut perfectly square and glazed over. On the crisp top sat three pomegranate seeds and one single cherry as pristine as if it had just fallen off the tree. Next to the meat, like grave flowers, lay a miniature bouquet of caramelized rosemary. Hannibal’s food presentation was usually symbolic, or a joke, but this one was especially Christian.

Well aware of Hannibal’s intrusive gaze, Will cut into the cube. It was pink inside. He placed a slice on his tongue. The meat melted against the roof of his mouth. It was perfectly tender, delicious. The taste was game-like yet mild, but the sauce was strong, cherry sweet with a salty iron flavour of blood.

“What am I eating?” he asked. He did not ask who he was eating.

“Venison,” said Hannibal.

“Venison just means that it’s been hunted, from the Latin root,” said Will dryly, taking another bite, “and deer does not taste like this.”

Hannibal had obviously been waiting for this moment. The smug smile would not fade from his face.

“Fawn, more precisely,” he said. “There is no established culinary term for this type of meat, because the hunting of fawns is impractical and usually prohibited. Some might argue that meat as young as this is not desirable for lack of taste. They would be wrong. I shot the mother, the fawn still in her womb and cooked it inside her.”

Will swallowed at that. He looked at the meat as if he could judge the truth of the matter from the net of fibers alone. He could sense an ethical debate around the corner. Was it somehow more despicable to kill the unborn than the living? Was his instinctive revulsion at the very idea of cooking the child in its mother's juices justifiable in debate with a man who ate human flesh?

He was so tired of these conversations. He was tired of overthinking the small words and gestures, the unspoken meaning in eating the unborn, a fawn cooked in its mother’s blood, Semitic food laws, consummation, assimilation, creation, immaculate conception, Biblical sin - and the cherry on top. That cherry was so laughably literally just an edible pun.

“You went hunting without me?” Will asked.

He popped the cherry into his mouth, sucked the meat off the pit and spit it out on the plate. Hannibal watched him. Something twitched in the corner of his mouth. Will could not tell if it was anger or amusement or even lust. It was possible that Hannibal could not tell either.

“You were still healing,” Hannibal said, “I am sorry.”

Hannibal didn’t usually bother to put on his good guy face anymore, he had dropped this routine. His apology sounded clinical and therefore a little more genuine than the act. Under the table Will ran his fingertips along the terrible scar on his stomach.

“Does it still hurt?”, Hannibal asked.

“No,” Will said. Not if he didn’t want it to.

They ate in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On this episode of Hannibal: A pun.


	3. Metamorphosis

Hannibal wanted to show him Palermo, Italy, Europe; the places he had visited before, villas and palaces and the museums that housed the pieces he loved. He wanted to show Will the world through the kaleidoscope of his own vision. In a quiet hour he took him to a museum in an old palazzo not far from their home. With urgent steps he led him past the medieval exhibits to the palazzo’s former chapel.

“I wanted you to see this, Will.”

The chapel’s chancel was painted entirely white and lit by the windows high above, transforming it into an tall column of light. On the far wall in place of the altar stood a Gothic fresco of enormous size, stretching from one side to the other and towering over their heads.

“Trionfo della Morte, the triumph of death,” Hannibal said.

Death was a skeletal rider on a gaunt horse, razing a path of destruction through a luxurious garden, trampling popes and kings and common men, and raining arrows down at the helpless bodies below. While the trampled were already blue and rotting under their crowns, others still in the rider’s path had only just been pierced by the arrows and in their dying breaths were clasping the hands of their beloved ones. Chaos and sorrow reigned, but one of the figures drew Will’s attention and he looked at her for a long time. In the rider’s path stood a noblewoman dressed in a blood-red gown. The deterioration of the fresco had painted a crumbling circle emanating from her breast. Her head was humbly lowered and she held her hands at her side, splayed out at an odd angle.

“As if welcoming death into her arms,” said Will quietly, more to himself than his companion.

“She is praying,” Hannibal said, “this posture is referred to as orans, ‘one who is pleading’. This the oldest form of prayer, older than Christianity, older than Judaism. This is not the posture of one begging for alms from the hands of one all too human God.”

“No,” Will said, “she's not pleading for mercy, she's pleading for the arrow.”

It was hard to avert his eyes from the red figure. How much space she seemed to take. Her submission was radiant. Death was approaching, the horse stretching its thin limps towards her. The long eyeless skull bared its red gums, foaming from the mouth. She stood alone, the crowd withdrawing from her, the fresco withdrawing from her. And Death saw her and readied another arrow.

“You lead me into a house of God to show me the devil,“ Will said and laughed cynically.

“Where else would he be found?” said Hannibal and smiled as if joining in on a joke. “Art without God is banal. Art without violence is boring. What are our eyes drawn to, the green garden or the pile of corpses within? Everything beautiful requires some measure of brutality. The finest silk is woven from the cocoons of a harmless little moth, which for this purpose is thrown into a pot of boiling water, killing the pupa before it can emerge transformed. I like to think their cruel and premature death is woven into the fabric.“

Hannibal reached for Will’s hand, took it in his and placed it gently around his neck, pressing it to the spot where the collar of his silken shirt opened around his Adam's apple.

“Can you feel it?” he said.

The silk was cold under Will's fingers, but his index finger was resting on a warm sliver of neck above the shirt’s collar. His eyes followed the abstract pattern of the fabric to the hard outline of Hannibal’s jaw, the soft flesh thereunder. He remembered how much he had fantasized about this moment, his hand around Hannibal’s neck, squeezing mercilessly.

Hannibal looked at him expectantly.

They were not alone in the museum. In the distance he heard the clicking approach of high heels on stone. In the far corner of the room a guard cleared his throat. Will withdrew his hand and walked on.

“The dayfly larva lives for two years, the fly lives for two days,” he said as they entered another room, “the so-called maturity of these insects is just a brief struggle after a life of comfort. They mate and then they die."

“Yet we admire the butterfly for its colours and crush the larva under our feet for its hunger,” Hannibal said, “the disdain for worms and the worm-like is universal. _You have evolved from worm to man, but much within you is still worm._ ”

“Did you just call me a worm?” Will asked, turning to Hannibal with an expression that made no attempt to hide his disbelief at the insult.

“Nietzsche. Zarathustra.”

Will nodded, the point was made. He returned his attention to a wooden relief on the wall, whose garish colours had subconsciously drawn him to it. The expulsion from the garden of Eden was its subject, but it was not Adam and Eve fleeing in shame that caught his attention. At their feet the wood was carved into a still life of exotic fruit and wilted flowers. Two tiny black flies sat on the petals of a white lily. Next to it lay a pomegranate so overripe it seemed close to bursting, splitting the wood. The thought occured to him that maybe there was nothing wrong with the complacent existence of the maggot in the flesh, eating where it slept.

“I have evolved from worm,” he said, “you once compared me to a chrysalis. What was the purpose of my metamorphosis?”

Hannibal caught up with him again, his presence drawing a little too close. He stood behind Will, looking over his shoulder, copying his perspective on the relief. Will could feel his breath on the nape of his neck as he spoke.

“Becoming does not need a purpose, it is the purpose,” he said.

A cold shudder ran down Will's back, where his shirt clung damply to his skin. They mate and then they die, he thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On this episode of Hannibal: The author planning their vacation.


	4. Absolution

Like the insatiable caterpillar finally transformed into a dusty moth, Hannibal chose to live in Palermo like a medieval regent; dancing, dining, and hiding behind thick stone walls and windows small like arrow slits, ready to defend his home against the next angry peasant mob. Given total leeway, he preferred the flickering unsteady light of candles or the glitter of chandeliers to the cold exposure of sunlight. He enjoyed the company of books so old that just one touch of bare hands could destroy them, of medieval torture devices with residue of centuries old blood and Greco-Roman statues in all states of decay. All of which were best preserved behind walls, behind glass, in dimly lit museums or drawers, hidden from the plebeian eye. 

Although Will was free to come and leave as he pleased and had no duty to no one, the brutality of it all, the darkness and the baroque opulence, the overabundance of patterns, surfaces, furniture, things that were not his own, made Will feel imprisoned. Imprisoned in a castle fitted with hand-embroidered sofas in the 18th century style and a copper bathtub three times his age. 

Of all the rooms Will liked the one with the bathtub best. It was small like a cabin, but bright with large windows and mirrors that reflected their light. If he drew the curtains aside, he could lie in the bathtub and gaze at the sky for hours, thinking of the vastness of it, just the crisp blue sky all the way to the horizon and the blue sea below, merging into one plane with no end and nothing within. It tugged at him, this vast space, it drew him in. He envisioned himself being pulled up into it, drowning in it, in water thick like paint. Or on a better day, he would just imagine himself on a boat on the ocean, rocking back and forth. The seagulls were circling over his head. The nets were heavy with fish, ready to be reeled in. And life was good.

There was a minor flaw with this room. The door was in the bather’s blind spot. A deliberate design choice. He could feel Hannibal’s gaze prickle on the back of his neck. There had been no footsteps to announce his presence, not a single sound, yet his presence lingered unmistakably. 

It was a familiar feeling. Sometimes when he had been out in the forest, all by himself, and he was following a path, a track, or just one of his own stray thoughts and fancies, Will could suddenly feel that he was not alone. He could feel that the tracks circled back in on themselves, that as he was watching, something out there was watching him in return. Usually it was just a deer, still and invisible in a brush. Or a hare ducked low in the grass. And as he unknowingly came closer, it would eventually break out into panicked flight, dissipating the tension of the moment as it dashed off. Sometimes the watcher stayed hidden. Predators do not back down. And the tension would remain, turning into a grating experience. There he was standing in a tree circle, all the birds watching, all the insects quiet, no wind bristling in the branches, muscles tight in his back. And he is waiting for someone to make the first move.

“Come inside,” Will said.

Hannibal followed the invitation, shedding his silence as he entered the small room. Then he stood behind Will, his hand casually placed on the rim of the bathtub. 

“How long have you been standing there?” Will asked. 

“Only a moment.”

“Then why do I feel like you’ve been holding a blade to my neck for the past five minutes?”

“I would not hesitate that long.”

Will could hear the smile in his voice. He did not look up at him, did not feel like it. He closed his eyes and he saw what Hannibal saw, saw himself naked like Hannibal did. His figure lay in the tub like in a casket, stretched out and nude. His hair was wet and drawn back from his face, revealing the old bruises on his temple. The water cut a line over his chest which rose and fell calmly, like the lines of a topographical map of his body. Under the surface he could see the terrible scar on his stomach that Hannibal had placed there himself with such deliberate precision. The farewell kiss he could not reject, the parting gift he could not throw out. He knew that Hannibal couldn't help but stare.

"I've seen the photo that Miss Lounds took of you in the hospital," Hannibal said.

That was surprisingly painful to hear. Will had almost forgotten what it had felt like to see the photo of himself exposed like that to the world, unconscious, tied to a machine, shit dripping into his colostomy bag. 

"I'm sorry for bringing up painful memories," Hannibal said.

"You're not sorry," Will replied sharply. He was still staring at the ceiling, eyes closed, watching the red flicker behind his eyelids. 

"No, I am not," Hannibal said.

Will could hear him walk over to the commode, opening one of the drawers, then returning to the lingering position over his head. If he concentrated hard enough, he could still see his outline behind closed eyes, a little black hole in the red. For a moment he wondered if seeing the scar had driven Hannibal to finish the job; slice him open again, same entry, but this time all the way, guts swimming in the bathtub like a hearty soup. How would Hannibal choose to prepare him, what were his most delicious parts?

"Did the photo.. excite you?" Will asked.

"Yes," said the voice over his head darkly.

Things escalated quickly in Will's head. There were questions he did not dare to ask when he was eye to eye with Hannibal, not wanting them answered, but now they came freely.

"Did you cut it out of the newspaper and put it in your wallet, and hold it close to your heart?" he asked and then he could not stop, spitting his words out like venom. "Did you think of me when you were having dinner with Bedelia? Or was it when you were sleeping with her?"

"You enjoy hurting me, Will," said Hannibal calmly.

"Very observant, Dr. Lecter," said Will with a grimacing smile, "do you do this professionally?"

"Let me wash your hair," Hannibal replied.

"What?" 

The surprise was enough to make Will open his eyes and give Hannibal a scrutinizing look. Hannibal wore an entirely innocent expression. He held a little green bottle of shampoo in his hand and he shook it when Will looked at it with utter disbelief.

"I would like to wash your hair. You might enjoy it," Hannibal said and the thin line of his lips became a little longer, the corners of his mouth curling up. 

Will could come up with no rational opposition to the suggestion and the fact that the mere thought of being touched by Hannibal right now made his heart jump and his stomach turn, was not something he chose to divulge.

"Go ahead then," he said.

Hannibal spread the shampoo on his fingers and massaged it into Will’s hair. It smelled like incense and roses, Catholic. The touch of his fingers was firm but gentle, a surgeon’s hands. Easy to sink into it and forget everything said and done. When he was done washing it out of Will's hair, he left him, so that he might get dressed. They were expecting guests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On this episode of Hannibal: Kitchen sink drama.


	5. Menagerie

Hannibal’s steady breath on his neck, the casual touch of their hips, an amiable hand on his shoulder. It was getting too much to bear. The Triumph of Death was still in his head, trampling him underneath. The air was cool in the museum, but Will still felt like he was choking on it. 

“Excuse me,” he said to Hannibal and he hastened with urgent steps for an exit, past wooden saints and joyfully grimacing skulls. Finally he found a safe haven in the palazzo’s yard. It was half stone and half garden, a pattern of green grass squares growing from the ground like a chessboard. In the corners of the yard wild roses grew out of broken stone, climbing up the walls with thorny vines. Time had stopped for this place, 1950 or 1590, the roses still burst the stone. Palermo was as beautiful as it was old, but there were too many miniature castles in this city for his liking and not enough trees. He longed to be home and home was a little wooden house in the snow, a boat on a frozen lake and a couple of stray dogs curled up in front of the fireplace.

He leaned on the southern wall of the garden, ducking into its shade, taking heavy breaths. The midday heat was terribly oppressive and the yard even emptier than the museum. Will looked miserable. His shirt clung to him like a second skin, the azure fabric of it turning dark on his chest and his back. He could feel the beginnings of a terrible migraine. 

Hannibal was in no hurry to catch up with him. He came strolling casually and he looked entirely unaffected by the heat, wearing a light linen suit and matching panama hat. He joined Will in the shade, leaning back against the wall next to him. Then he put his hand on Will’s forehead, pushing his wet curls aside, and checked his temperature. Hannibal’s fingers were cool on his skin and Will sighed at the touch.

“You should rest,” Hannibal said.

Will nodded. “You may stay longer,” he said, “I don’t need a chaperon.”

“You need a companion,” Hannibal said, his voice indicating that he would not accept 'no' for an answer. He linked arms with Will and smiled in that boyish way that was his very own. Then he led him out of the palazzo into the narrow network of roads.

There was no doubt that they were companions. Will could not deny having wanted just this. He could not deny that he had missed Hannibal with an uterly irrational passion (the promise of revenge gave this feeling a dark red tinge). Unlike Hannibal love was not the word he would have chosen to describe this feeling. Love was not a word he used freely, it came with implications. Love meant having breakfast together, sleeping under one blanket arm in arm, kissing each other goodnight. Love meant to live with each other to the bitter end. What love meant to Hannibal was more complicated. It could just as well mean a juicy roast meat in the oven.

Will resisted the urge to pull his arm away. The closer they got the less he wanted them to be. Now he suddenly wondered if his longing for Hannibal had been the kind of desire that dwindled the closer its fulfilment was in reach. A moth must have felt the same when circling the lantern, drawn in by the enchanting light, closer and closer, until the heat scorched its little legs and antennas. Then it fluttered away into darkness, injured and senseless, but destined to be drawn back once again. If it could not tear itself away from the light, it would eventually burn up. Even when Will tugged his just anger away into some dark recess of the mind, his fear of being burned remained. The last time Hannibal had embraced him the blade of a knife had stood between them pointed his way.

“Roses are planted where thorns grow,” Hannibal said as he was walking Will home, “forgiveness is a fertile soil.”

“You seem to feel particularly romantic when I am weak,” Will said. He had trouble thinking straight. His temples were throbbing with pain, his field of vision was shrinking down to a point. At the edges of his vision he could make out the vague shapes of the other people on the road, their distorted faces, the inquisitive glances they threw at the two walking arm in arm in a style long out of fashion for men. 

“My compassion for you is not inherently sadistic,” Hannibal said. “A wounded lion is a tragedy. A wounded sheep is tomorrow’s dinner."

“Sometimes I can't tell if I'm a sheep in wolf's fur or a wolf in sheep's wool,” Will said. It came out sounding more bitter than he had intended. 

Currently he felt very much the sheep. He leaned into Hannibal to steady himself. He just wanted to lie down in the dark. That and a glass of cold water. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On this episode of Hannibal: The fair lady's fainting spell.


	6. Reflections

Will was standing in front of a tall mirror in the dimly lit guest room. The mirror was gold-framed and enormous. The room was quiet, the traffic and human voices and the cries of birds all silenced. The place felt like a tomb. He tugged in his shirt and flattened the front of it. The dark plum coloured fabric had a metallic sheen to it, reminiscent of armour. He vividly remembered trying it on in a shop not far down the road. Hannibal had run his palm softly over the cool fabric, caressing his back. The flamboyant French salesman had looked at them as if they were newly-weds.

As easy as it was for Will to see himself through other people’s eyes, it was for this reason that he did not usually pay attention to the way he was perceived, instead he made a conscious effort to block these unwanted insights out. Then came that time when he had to learn to tailor himself to Hannibal’s tastes, to play the bait and get dressed in the morning like picking out the right feather for a fishing lure. There was no need for lies now, but when the mask had come off there simply was another one behind it. The guise had morphed into a permanent facet of his character. He was not who he used to be. He combed his hair and slicked it back. He looked positively Byronic.

The door rang. Hannibal had invited a Venice born gentleman from the art and history circles he liked to frequent. These people were either very quiet or very loud, wearing their abnormalities on the hem of their sleeves. This one was twenty minutes late and Hannibal didn't even seem upset.

“You’ve become lenient when it comes to manners,” Will observed as they were waiting in the hallway.

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do," Hannibal said.

Living with Hannibal had made Will realize how much the act of hosting an evening meant to him. Hannibal’s life wasn’t truly complete without someone at the dinner table who would react with amazement at his perfect meal presentation, his excellent wine choice and macabre anecdotes. The choice of music, the decoration, the smell of his aftershave, the colour of napkins - it was the perfectionism of a demented 50s housewife. The act was as creative as it was performative. Hannibal’s narcissism alone drove him to find ever new people to amaze, new people to look down on. It was only by comparison that he could truly express his own superiority. The fat cat needed her little mice to play with. Playing the role of the disgruntled husband, Will ignored all of this until his presence at the table was required. 

Their guest was a sly middle-aged man, curator by profession. He looked like a salesman or an actor and introduced himself as Cecilio Cicala. He was quite proficient in English, having adopted not just an oddly vague American accent but also the very American manner of daringly treating complete strangers like good friends. Upon seeing Will by Hannibal’s side he promptly asked, “And who is this pretty young man, your partner?"

"My partner in crime," Hannibal quipped. "This is a colleague of mine, Will Graham, visiting from Baltimore.”

The look of disbelief Will threw Hannibal at revealing his real identity so carelessly went unseen.

Soon they were sitting together with a glass of red, warming up for the final course. There was a huge Iberian ham on the table between them, surrounded by piles of grapes and flowers and pears. The table seemed to be overflowing like a Baroque still life. The only thing missing was the cautionary skull.

Having engaged in lengthy dialogues on the subject of Venetian vices, Hannibal suddenly brought the attention once more back to Will.

“Are you at all familiar with Mr. Graham’s work, Mr. Cicala? His field is criminology,” Hannibal said, "and he's specialized in art history."

"Oh, how fascinating,” the Italian said, “I've never even heard of such a conflation! Say, Mr. Graham, do you deal with the art of criminals or the crimes of artists?"

Will had very little interest in engaging in this kind of roleplay. He downed his glass of wine. The look he threw Hannibal over the rim of it made his position abundantly clear.

"What is the difference?” Hannibal interjected. “Quando finisce la partita il re ed il pedone finiscono nella stessa scatola."

They both laughed at the little joke. Will’s spotty Italian was not up for the task of understanding the proverb. He did not mind. A language not understood could easily be ignored. Then he could quickly be somewhere else, standing in a vast current, a fishing rod in hand and their chitter chatter was nothing but the roaming of water around his legs.

"Have you heard of the Chesapeake Ripper?"

Hannibal’s voice drew Will back from the current and firmly in his seat at the table. Now he was paying attention.

"It does ring a bell.. the ripper.. a painting?" the Italian said, searching his memory unsuccessfully.

Will tightened the grip on his fork. If he could have kicked Hannibal under the table he would have done so.

"A serial killer and an artist," Hannibal said and smiled smugly. Oh, how utterly amusing this was to him, how clever he felt. "Mr. Graham dedicated his latest book to the killer's oeuvre. We should find you a copy."

"Oh, is that so?" the Italian said and turned inquisitively to Will. Not following where this was going nor why he should be interested in something as mundane as murder at all, it was obvious that he was merely feigning interest, but he feigned it well.

"No," Will said without a care for appearances and he held eye contact with Hannibal, unrelentingly staring him down.

Their guest was visibly taken aback.

"Mr. Graham is being coy," explained Hannibal, "he's a very famous expert in the field. His particular forte is that he can put himself into any killer's frame of mind. Not a place any of us would like to inhabit." And he winked at the very confused Mr. Cicala.

Their guest was not stupid. He could tell something was going on, that his hosts were talking to each other over his head. He understood that he was a pawn, but he did not understand the game nor its intended outcome. Will did. He closed his eyes and he saw what Hannibal saw.

The carving knife on the table, the carving knife in Hannibal’s hand. Hannibal is standing behind their guest. He drags him up by the hair with ease. His body is honed to kill, like something before man, mechanic and merciless. Then Hannibal slices the man's throat, sprinkling fresh blood over the table, the plates, leftover dinner, Will's legs, his crotch, his torso, his face. He hands Will the knife. The man is still alive. A gurgled noise comes from the gaping slit of his neck. He's choking on his own blood. End it, Hannibal says and Will does it without hesitation. He pierces the man through the heart. A fine trickle of blood runs from the wound. The body drops to the floor. They embrace, sharing his warm blood between them. They dance together, leaving bloody footsteps on the carpet. Hannibal leads. Later they lie in bed fully dressed and Hannibal cradles him in his arms like a child. Will is sobbing and the room smells like a slaughterhouse. The blood dries on their skin and in their clothing. It glues them together and they fall asleep. This is Hannibal’s design, the kitsch painting of a monster.

Will opened his eyes. There was that cold calculating twinkle in Hannibal’s eyes. At his hungriest he looked the most restrained. Hannibal's hand was already on the handle of the knife, his fingers closing shut. Any moment he would set his vision in motion.

"Don't you dare", hissed Will.

Hannibal stopped. Will's eyes kept him pinned to the chair, the knife still in hand.

"Put that down," Will said and something in him wished that Hannibal would not obey, that he would give him a reason to jump at his throat like a furious dog and rip out his jugular. Hannibal seemed to think the same. His tongue flicked over his lips.

"Would you like another slice of ham, Mr.Cicala?" he suddenly asked, turning to their baffled guest.

“Ah, yes, sure..” 

The Italian shrugged and held out his plate. A slit of white flesh, tendons and arteries, was revealed by the hem of his shirt as he stretched his arm out over the table. He glanced critically left and right and once again found no one looking back at him, just the two men staring at each other, the tension between them so thick one could have cut it with that knife. 

He sighed. "Oh, gentlemen, I don't know about all of this murder business, but please drop the charade," he said. "It's abundantly clear that you have some things to settle between the two of you and I fear that I'm just getting in the way!"

He was walking a thin robe over a deep dark chasm, blindfolded and unknowing. Will tried to help him across. "Yes, please go now," he said, dropping every word with intention. 

"It would be terribly rude if you left before dessert," said Hannibal. The threat in his words was thinly veiled.

"Go," Will said. The plea was now an explicit order.

The Italian hesitated. He shrugged. He got up from the table and then he simply left them, awkwardly seeing himself out. He was mumbling to himself in the hallway as he was slipping on his jacket. Then the door closed behind him.

Hannibal returned his attention to dinner as if nothing had happened. He cut himself a slice of ham and refilled their glasses, taking some time to savour the moment. Then finally he picked up the conversation, "You let him get away despite everything he knows?"

"Despite everything _you told him_ ," Will said, making no attempt to hide his irritation.

"What if he looks up your name?", Hannibal replied. His tone wasn't reproachful, which would have implied some kind of worry or fear. He was merely curious. “Tell me, Will. Will you run or will you fight?”

"Hannibal," Will said and sighed deeply, "he simply thinks I am your jealous boytoy."

For a moment Hannibal was stumped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you not?


	7. Woundcare

They were back from the museum and Will sat on the couch in the living room. Leaning back he was watching Hannibal from the corners of his eyes as he walked back and forth through the apartment, drawing the blinds shut. One by one the room became darker and instantly felt cooler too, like the slow descent into a deep basement.

Will held Hannibal in a narrow slit of attention. There was a drilling pain in his temples and grey lights flickered at the corners of his vision, assuming vaguely human shapes like dancing cave paintings. His head hadn't felt this bad in a while. 

When Hannibal closed the last window, it was dark and quiet in the room. Will's eyes took longer than usual to adjust. He neither saw nor heard Hannibal coming. His face appeared out of the darkness like a mask wearing no discernable expression.

“Do you need anything?” Hannibal asked.

“Water, painkillers,” Will said, “silence and sleep.”

Hannibal turned on the lamp by the canapé, which shed a little of its warm light. Then he left for the kitchen. Will heard him opening cupboards, going back and forth, running water. Hannibal’s steps were silent on the carpet when he returned. He held a glass of water and sat down next to Will, brushing up against him. Will stretched his hand out for the glass but Hannibal ignored it, putting the glass directly to his lips. Irritated Will pushed his hand away. 

"What are you doing?” he said.

“It’s not poisoned,” said Hannibal with an all too friendly smile. He grabbed and held Will by the back of the neck like a very stern and determined nurse, put the glass to his lips once again and tilted it. Will was forced to gulp down the water to avoid spilling it over himself. It was ice cold, pleasant, with only the faint taste of aspirin to it. 

And then Hannibal did not stop, tipping the glass further, and it overflowed. The water spilled over Will’s lips, ran down his chin and dripped on his chest. Cursing, Will tried to rise from the couch. The glass was sent flying to the floor, landing on the wooden panels with a thud.

Hannibal looked amused. He made no attempt to pretend that it had been an honest mistake. He put one hand on Will’s chest and simply pressed him back into the couch, the task requiring very little effort on his part. 

Will was not in the clearest state of mind, his head still felt as if it was being drilled into, and the escalation of the situation implied a couple of likely outcomes. Nightmares, daydreams and visions of rape came rushing back. Hannibal’s hand was cold on his chest where it had been drenched wet. He felt himself shudder out of reflex. There was the urge to fight and run and another to lie back and laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. It was the latter that won. 

“Pathetic,” he said, “you leer and and salivate for weeks and now you make up your mind, now that I can’t fight back.”

“You overestimate your defences on a good day,” said Hannibal matter-of-factly.

Will laughed bitterly and fell back in the cushions, making no further attempt to fight him off. It would have been a pointless endeavor. Maybe he had already been drugged and would wake up in some hours to find himself violated. He had felt like that before, when Hannibal had shoved a tube down his throat. It was almost funny, what intimate moments they already shared. 

The pressure on Will’s chest was removed and Hannibal’s hand wandered gently up to his neck, his fingertips coming to rest on the bared jugular notch, the dip where the clavicles almost met.

“Intimate,” Will observed, feeling very cranky, sounding very cranky.

Hannibal smiled at him like a parent smiles at an unruly child, an inherently condescending patience nurtured by feelings of superiority.

“I want you to enjoy this," he said.

Then he leaned over and opened Will's shirt, button by button. The slow and deliberate ritual lacked all of the violence of Will's nightmares. This was no sudden release of the subconscious, not the wild gnawing of the Id. Hannibal's motions were much too restrained. He felt every change of pressure on his chest, every scraping of the manicured nails, every button undone. And Hannibal was sitting by his side, not like an assailant but a good friend, helping him through something that needed to be done. 

Will groaned. He looked away and focused on a painting on the wall: Leda and the Swan.

The buttons came undone over his stomach, finally revealing the scar. With some satisfaction he heard Hannibal hold his breath. The scar was a thick swollen line across his belly, the flesh slightly raised and pale. The lack of hair on it made it stand out jarringly, like a broad dash of paint drawn across a finished piece in a fit of anger. The time that he had spent tied to a hospital bed had atrophied his muscles and his abdominal muscles had never quite regained their strength. His belly was softer now than before and fatter too. Reflexes and nerves were cut, the damage was permanent. He could barely even feel it when Hannibal touched the scar. 

“Go ahead,” Will said, “I’m sure you can find your way in.”

“There are more practical points of entry,” said Hannibal absentmindedly. He followed the line with his fingers. It felt clinical, like the doctor checking on his patient’s progress.

Will tore himself away from the painting, away from the grotesque copulation of woman and beast it depicted with such sugary naivity. And he watched Hannibal now. The migraine was fading slowly, his vision was opening up. Hannibal was hovering over him, leaning into him, their breaths mingling. He remembered the knife in his pocket. Hannibal’s hand was resting on it as if by coincidence. 

“I’m very fond of this one,” said Hannibal. He was still not meeting Will's eyes, entirely drawn in by his own craftsmanship. “You healed very nicely."

"They had to remove four feet of intestine," said Will dryly.

When the doctors had told him afterwards, it had made him wonder what was in there now instead; a small ball of nothing, choked by the weight of his organs. How much of him could be removed before it would show, when would he start looking hollow and shrunken, when would he simply collapse in on himself like the sheath of a man? Hannibal would know the answer, he thought with some revulsion. Premortem disembowelment was his specialty.

"It's beautiful,” Hannibal said. There was genuine awe in his voice, as if he was looking at a piece of art, the deep blacks and soft shadows on Will’s stomach his very own Caravaggio made flesh. And he was Saint Thomas poking the wound. It was flattering for all the wrong reasons. 

“If you like it so much I can make you one of your own,” Will said and he bared his teeth in a canine grin.

“Can you?”, said Hannibal, smirking. “I would like to see you try.”

"I can't guarantee that you won't have to defecate into a bag for the rest of your life," Will said, thinking that he could easily guarantee the opposite with a little twist of the knife. 

Hannibal smiled as if his favorite pet had done a little trick. How fond he was now of Will's spouts of anger.

Then he suddenly got up from the couch. He took off his jacket and placed it neatly folded on the couch next to Will. Then he came down again on his knees, kneeling on the carpet, squeezing between Will’s legs. He lowered his head and pressed his lips to Will's stomach. He inhaled deeply. The smell of Will was strong in his nose; aftershave from a bottle with a boat on it, sweat-soaked linen drying cold, the sweet musk of his armpits, the smell of his crotch. He kissed the scar. His mouth opened. His tongue darted out and he licked over the rim of it, leaving a wet trace behind. 

Will froze and stared at him in disbelief. It wasn’t pleasant, disgusting even, if he allowed himself to focus on the feeling of the wet tongue dragging over his skin like a slimy slug, the thin lips closing on his flesh, Hannibal’s hands holding onto his knees for support, the whole act a poor imitation of fellatio with connotations of cannibalism of the most primitive kind. Licking, biting, eating. He was used to seeing Hannibal as a predator, egotistically taking as he pleased. Never had he imagined him like this, serving him on his knees. It would have required some base desire to put Hannibal in that place, and then to spin it further, to envision himself grabbing Hannibal by the hair, to hold him down and fuck his face. No, he was not like that. But Hannibal would like him to be. He could see Hannibal making comments on the nature of one's becoming while semen dropped from his thin lips, a pornographic caricature of himself. The higher man tried to reach, the lower he would sink. And it would suit him well. Beast to man to beast.

Having seen and smelled and tasted Will for some time Hannibal was finally satisfied. He got up and seemed almost disheveled, momentarily disoriented, hair hanging in his face. Then he recovered. He fixed his hair. He straightened the front of his trousers. His arousal was visible. Will felt a little sick at the sight and suddenly also very relieved to have found the preceding events entirely unexciting himself.

Hannibal cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Will,” he said and he was sorry, sorry to have lost his control. “I overstepped the boundaries we agreed on.”

"We did not agree on anything," Will said.

"No, not verbally," said Hannibal. He took a small handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped his mouth.

“You could have asked for permission."

“Would you have given it?” Hannibal asked and Will detected a faint note of hope hidden away in his voice. He had truly become a bloodhound for weakness, exploiting any sign of it to tear Hannibal down had become an almost natural reflex. He did not think before he spoke.

“Would you have begged?”

Hannibal was momentarily stupefied by the question. He looked at Will, sitting on the couch with his legs spread and head thrown back. Traces of pain were still visible on his face. He was sweating. He smelled sick. His shirt was drenched and lay open, revealing a triangle of skin and the hair on it was wet from water and spit. He looked indecent and helpless were it not for the confrontational glare in his eyes. 

“Would you like to see me beg, Will?"

“Third grade psychology, Dr Lecter," Will replied, "answer the question." 

“You’re relentless,” said Hannibal. He sounded soft and appreciative. “I would be delighted to beg if you gave me that look."

“Then I would turn you down with equal pleasure,” said Will. 

He turned over on his side, curling up on the couch. Now to sleep and forget. And Hannibal stole away like a thief.

When Will woke up some hours later, it was late afternoon and he found himself in his bed. Hannibal had carried him to his room. He ran his hands over his body, checking for damage, as if there might be a bit cut out of him, but he found himself unscathed. The smell of dinner came crawling into his room through the gaps between the door and the frame. Meat frying in a pan. And Hannibal was in the kitchen, humming Vivaldi or Bach, to Will it sounded all the same.

It would have been easy to forget those couple of minutes, to stash the images away in some far corner of the mind, like the drunk fumblings of two friends in the dark, emphatically ignored in the clear light of day. He washed it all off under the shower and Hannibal’s spit went down the drain.


	8. Sunset

Will and Hannibal were sitting on the balcony, watching the last light of the day disappear behind the steep outline of Monte Cuccio. A bottle of white wine with a prancing jester on the label sat between them on the table and on a wooden teak slate was an arrangement of olives, focaccia and sliced salami Cacciatore, the presentation deliberately effortless, the moment planned long in advance. 

With the setting of the sun the city truly came alive. Candles and lanterns and all sorts of electric lights started popping up in the darkness left by the fading sun. Soon the city murmured below them, hundreds of terraces and balconies set alight, lovestruck couples, friends and families on them and a thousand bottles of wine and plates of pasta; and music was playing and there was laughter too and it was as if Will's mind had left his body and had drifted out to the sea.

Hannibal broke their mutually shared silence. 

“Would you like to have a boat?” he asked.

Will knew that the question was not of a theoretical nature. He was already living off Hannibal’s riches, unemployed, unburdened by duties and as a result feeling like he was without aim or drive. He could have whatever he wanted, but he did not generally want much and the few things he did want made him feel guilty, like he would have to pay for them eventually. He remembered that Venetian man who had thought that Mr. Graham was a rich gentleman’s rude little plaything. He could not shake the feeling that Mr. Cicala had not been entirely wrong. 

“No, it’s a waste”, he said, “we will have to move soon. People will come looking for me. He will.”

He did not need to say Jack Crawford's name to be understood and he preferred to leave it unspoken, as if the man could be summoned with the wrong turn of a phrase; if not summoned in person then in spirit, tormenting him with guilt.

“We don’t have to leave the boat behind," said Hannibal. 

“Are you suggesting that we sail the oceans on a little cruiser? I am going to see policemen waiting for us on every pier that we approach. And have you seen the size of those kitchens?”

Hannibal smiled. “I can adapt,” he said.

Will was trying to imagine the two of them living on a boat, the stormy sea raging around them, Hannibal making scrambled eggs down below while Will was working on deck in rubber boots. It was hard to imagine the scene as anything but an eventually lethal farce, laugh track included. Two shipwrecked men drawing lots to decide who would eat the other first.

Beyond Monte Cuccio the red sky was bleeding into the horizon, the whole sea turning red and Will discarded the naive fantasies in favor of more tangible discussions.

“I’ve been wondering,” he suddenly said, “have you ever eaten the brain?”

“No,” Hannibal said and the tone of his voice suggested that he did not want to discuss his unconventional eating habits in such a casual manner. “Have you been reading about cannibalism?”

“A little. I was particularly interested in the medical implications. I read about prion disease. Some years of incubation, then degeneration, death. And in the meantime depression and laughing fits,” said Will and he laughed dryly.

“The Fore people of Papua New Guinea called it Kuru, the trembling disease. They used to practise a form of endocannibalism wherein they consumed their deceased family members, believing that the energy of life would not be lost if it was passed on and contained in the next body. They thought that death was just a transmutation of matter, and that by eating the deceased's flesh the soul would be contained in the family.“

Will thought of Abigail. He remembered sitting at Hannibal’s dining table in his old home, a place so dark and distant now; all those bodies served on a silver platter. And there always was a double entendre on Hannibal’s lips, the punchline a final insult to the dead. If Hannibal ate souls he ate them only for the pleasure of crushing them against his palate and grinding them down with his teeth.

“They thought that by eating the flesh of a man they would be blessed with his qualities,” Hannibal said and Will felt himself being sized up, his qualities assessed. 

“They were blessed with a contagious brain rotting disease."

“A rare and unfortunate coincidence. The Fore people hoped that they could trap the evil of man in the bellies of women, returning it to the original creator. They could not contain it.”

“You however can contain all the evil in the world.”

“And the good too,” said Hannibal. 

Will looked at him as if he was seeing him for the first time today. The broad figure leaning back in his chair, bathing in the last rays of dusk with an utterly content expression. Hannibal was wearing slim white slacks and his dark blue shirt was uncharacteristically opened almost to the belly, revealing the greying hair on his tanned chest, a little reminder of their difference in age. This bright nouveau riche image could not be reconciled with his memories of Baltimore, which were all pale blue snow painted red. 

“It’s really quite fascinating, how utterly revolting I still find the idea of eating human flesh, yet how used I’ve grown to the fact that you are doing it. I used to feel like spitting at the thought, like spitting on that smug smile on your face as you watched me eat.”

Hannibal studied Will's face in silence and he saw that Will meant everything he said.

"You think I'm subhuman for my culinary habits," he said, "a common misconception around a distinctly modern taboo. Unlike the Fore people early man practised cannibalism frequently to no ill effect. Every 100000 year old human bone they dig out of the earth is cracked for its marrow, every skull split for the brains. This is humanity. Nothing but a pile of pottery shards and broken bones."

“First you quote the bible in your defence then anthropology. You're a renaissance man of excuses." 

“Defence, Will? I am beyond judgment,” said Hannibal.

Will grabbed a salami slice off the wooden board. He held it up like the sacramental bread at the communion, accenting his words with it. 

"You're not God because you gut a priest and turn him into a salami," he said. 

"But what if it was a lawyer? " Hannibal replied.

Will could not help but laugh. Then he ate the slice. It tasted like pork. As he sucked the grease off his fingers Hannibal watched him with his hungry little eyes.


	9. Vertigo

It was Hannibal who suggested that they should go on a weekend trip to the continent. Will was glad that he didn't have to ask for it. The city was slowly eroding his spirits and he more than welcomed a change of scenery. Hannibal suggested the alps and it suited Will, who had the lush green of trees and the quiet solitude of the mountaintop in mind.

A long ferry ride north took them across the Ligurian Sea and all the way to Genoa. The sky was clear and seagulls followed them along the way. They arrived late and stayed for the night in a hotel in Genoa. It had a view of the port, which was enormous, industrial and ever busy. Will watched the coming and going of ships long into the night from the little balcony attached to his room. Hannibal was writing at his desk in the other room. The door between them stood ajar and Will still heard the scratching of pen on paper as he lay in bed. The lights of the sea port were glittering on the waves in his dreams. 

They were out on the road again early the next day, heading for the alps in a rented car.

It was a mild day, but it would be a long walk to the top of the mountain. They walked in silence, saving their breaths. And there was nothing they had to say to each other, nothing that was not understood without words.

The narrow winding path went by quietly rustling fir trees in cool shade, and over meadows swaying in the wind and through fields of flowers, which vibrated with heat and the noise of a million insects. They were mostly alone, encountering few other travelers on the way, but the few people they met they greeted politely in the way, which is custom all across the world in places remote and possibly dangerous.

They must have looked like an odd couple, Will in his flannel shirt and an entirely uncomplicated choice of hiking attire and Hannibal standing out like a time traveler in his turtleneck, wool trousers and old-fashioned leather shoes.

When they took breaks they sat next to each other, comfortably close and content with each other's company. On one occasion they refilled their bottles on a little stream, just a few metres from the spot where it broke out of the stone. The water was ice cold and Will took off his shoes and socks and walked through the brook, bathing his feet in it. Hannibal only watched.

"Are you going to wash my feet?" Will asked in jest.

"You enjoy casting yourself as Judas. It won't end well," said Hannibal.

"I enjoy casting you on a cross."

" _There he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out._ "

Hannibal smiled as if their mutual brutalization was just a fond shared memory now, something to retell now and then at the dining table to the benefit of some giggling guests. Remember when I was up on a cross with a rope around my neck because of you? Remember when I was spilling my guts on your kitchen floor? Merely courtship written in blood. The conversation was so jarringly out of place that Will later found himself wondering if it had taken place at all. 

Eventually the trees became sparse, giving way to grass and the grass gave way to stones. Michael, the saint on top of the mountain, was already in sight. When they arrived at the figure's base, they could finally see all the way down, see that little winding path, see over the fields and over the forest, past the villages and even further to another set of mountains with saints and crosses on top and if one found the right spot between them, they could see all the way to the shore and the Mediterranean Sea.

The mountaintop fell off steeply on the southern side, the remains of a fortification from the Great War forming an unnatural vertical. They were standing near that edge, looking out towards the little spot where the sea peaked through the mountain panorama. Saint Michael was behind them, slaying the wormlike dragon at his feet. The names of soldiers were inscribed on the base.

“It's strange that you suggested this place, " Will said, "because when I am with you, I already feel like I’m standing at the edge of a dark void." 

As if speaking it into existence by the power of his words alone, he suddenly saw the darkness appear on the horizon; first a small dot, then a spiral, circling and circling and spreading out over the land, rushing closer, running up against the mountain and filling the valley below with darkness like water in a basin.

"I’m terrified of it, yet I keep coming closer, bending over the edge, staring into the void," Will said and he walked closer to the edge of the mountain, looking down. As he was lookin into the dark depth below, from it there came a humming like a song and he knew that something was looking back at him with recognition.

"I’m terrified that I will jump. Jump and fall and fall and be swallowed up by darkness.”

Hannibal had followed him quietly and now he took his hand and squeezed it gently and Will fell quiet, looking at their entangled fingers as if observing an object separate from his own body. Then Hannibal let go again, the gesture brief but meaningful. He watched Hannibal’s hand return to his side. 

"A young man who loves life climbs a high tower, wanting merely to conquer it," Hannibal said and as he spoke he slowly slipped into his polite psychiatrist suit. "Exhausted but victorious he makes it up all the way. He walks to the edge of the tower and looking down he suddenly becomes terribly afraid that he will jump and fall to his death. The French have a word for this, _l’appel du vide_ , the call of the void. Tell me, Will, what do you fear, the void or the fall?" 

"I'm afraid that you are deliberately guiding me to my own annihilation."

"You're the man on top of the tower," said Hannibal. He left Will at the edge and leaned against the base of the statue, arms crossed in front of his body, deliberately carefree and removed. Behind his back the names of the fallen ran endlessly around the stone.

“But you are the void," Will said, " _these stumbling blocks must come, but woe to the man through whom they come."_

"You've been reading the bible," observed Hannibal.

"I have to try to keep up with your references. It's been a while since I last touched the book. Never retained much of it."

"Not much of it is worth retaining." 

Will took a step back from the edge. The darkness was only in his mind after all.

"Do you.. ever feel the call of the void?” he asked, turning to Hannibal. 

“No,” he said, “If I did, I would simply jump.”

“You’re not impulsive, Hannibal. We prowl around each other like hungry wolves, but you never do bite.”

“What are we but impulse? I am my own master in every regard. I don't bite because I don't want to. You however don’t bite, because you’re worried about piercing skin.”

“I simply don’t have your appetite”, said Will. The mantra was getting old. 


	10. Confession

Another city, another home, another evening sitting in the dining room, a meal soured by metaphors on the long table between them and Hannibal’s always content expression as he watched Will take in this day’s perfect presentation. The plate itself was made from white porcelain with a sturdy tin rim, stamped with the maker’s mark, a tiny planet and a sun. Rolled up on the big round plate lay the body of a rabbit, skinned, roasted and glazed. The animal was barely recognizable to the untrained eye as the creature it had once been, looking now more like some otherworldly embryo than the furry lagomorph. Following the spiny curvature of its back, fruits and flowers were carefully arranged like the trail of a falling star: tiny pink peaches, halved and seared, plum blossoms, lychees like wet eyeballs sitting in their open peel, yellow star fruits and a single Buddha's hand, a very strange fruit that had the skin of an orange but the shape of a bundle of many thin long fingers. The rabbit’s head was propped up to look up at Will from eye sockets filled with honey. Once solid, almost crystallized the honey was now melting, golden tears running down the crisps cheeks. Between its skinless teeth the rabbit was holding the tiny green branch of a pine tree.

“Rabbit prepared in the Chengdu style, soaked in chili and cinnamon for a day, it numbs the tongue pleasantly. The head alone is a local speciality. Let me demonstrate the proper technique.”

Hannibal removed the decorative branch from the rabbit's teeth and took the skull in both hands. It came smoothly off the body, the meat was soft. Honey and grease ran down his fingers. He turned the skull towards himself, locking eyes with the weeping hollows. Then he grabbed both jaws of the little head and forced them apart. For a moment the creature’s mouth stood wide open, screaming, then the bones cracked and the skull split in two from the jaws.

“The brain is considered to be the most delicious part,” said Hannibal and put his lips to the opened skull, sucking the brain out through its mouth like a mussel out of its shell. It was not a pretty sight and made a mess, which he quickly cleaned with his serviette. Then he looked expectantly at Will.

“And the branch is its last supper?” Will remarked. 

“Very observant. Are you acquainted with the hunting traditions commonly followed in German-speaking countries? Tradition demands that the hunter places a branch of a local tree in the mouth of the killed animal. This is the _letzter Bissen_ , the last bite. The pagan roots of this custom are self-evident. A last offering has to be made to the slain beast or its spirit will come to haunt you. The root of all burial rites lies within such fears. Fruit and flowers and pretty things for the dead are not gestures of love or reverence but terror.”

Will poked the rabbit’s head with his fork and it tipped over. The pieces of honey which had been placed in the eye sockets just prior to serving were now entirely melted from the heat, a sticky puddle forming underneath the skull.

“Tell me, Hannibal," he said, his voice heavy with sarcasm, "what would be the last bite to appease my soul?”

“Maple tree in autumn, still orange in colour with a hint of red,” said Hannibal, "and also a sizable piece of flesh torn out of my inner thigh."

"Torn out with my teeth?" 

"Naturally."

"A disturbingly quick reply," Will said. "Have you been thinking about this a lot?"

"You know I have. No need to be coquette."

"I'm not flirting," said Will.

He took the rabbit's head like Hannibal had done before and swiftly pried it open with a crack. Inside the skull lay the rabbit's brain, small, smooth and elongated, almost like an arrowhead, the shape vaguely evoking genitalia. He dug it out of the skull with his tongue, scraping it off the inner walls in a gruesome imitation of a French kiss. The taste was odd, oily, spicy and sweet from the method of preparation, but the taste of the brain itself he could not place.

Hannibal watched him eat it with blatant pleasure. 

"The process of eating is more pleasant than the taste," Will said and wiped his face clean. "I suppose the same could be said about some of the other things on your menu."

"Let's not talk about the other things today," said Hannibal politely. 

"Fine," said Will, "let's talk about you and me. Do you want to eat me?"

There was a moment of silence. 

“Do you really want to have this conversation?" replied Hannibal.

"We will have to eventually."

"You understand that there is no going back. This might be your void.”

"I'm not afraid of a little fall." 

"Very well then. Today is Upavasatha, the Buddhist day of the full moon, a day of spiritual cleansing. It is only appropriate that I might cleanse myself too," said Hannibal and he put down the cutlery and folded his hands in his lap as he began to speak. "Do you know the Chinese story about how the rabbit got inside the moon?" 

"The one that makes rice cake?"

"Yes. There are many variations but this one is my favorite: A monkey, an otter, a jackal and a rabbit meet an old beggar. The beggar has lit a fire and asks the four of them for food. The monkey gathers fruit for the man, the otter catches fish, the fox finds a lizard, but the rabbit has nothing to give but grass. So it says to the beggar 'you can eat me' and jumps into the fire." Hannibal fell quiet, giving the words time to sink. Then he proceeded, hastily ending the story with little interest in its outcome. "The old man is unsurprisingly revealed to be a god and he immortalizes the rabbit inside of the moon."

"You can eat me,” said Will, repeating the words to himself, a twisted smile on his face. "What pleasure you would derive from it if I were to offer myself. The final taming of the shrew. Do you want me to be your little rabbit?" he asked with thinly veiled mockery. 

"I do fantasize," said Hannibal. Three small words like knives on the chopping board, carrying too much meaning to bear. Will saw it then, saw himself, his own body as tendon and flesh, organs, fat, meat, all visceral carnality. Slices cut out of his leg, his arm on a platter, muscles flared like wings and feathers, his ear comically swimming in a cocktail glass, his eye rolling around in Hannibal’s mouth, caressed by his tongue, and again his stomach wide open, the scar undone like a zipper and his guts lying in his lap, steaming like hot soup. And he saw Hannibal in the kitchen with a little apron around his waist, flipping slices of him in a pan with some shallots and parsley. Down they would go with a glass of Chianti. 

“How would you eat me?" Will asked. "I know that you are collecting recipes in the little binder in your desk under those nude drawings that you label Hyacinth or Achilles or Theseus, but that all look just like me down to the dimples. Are you studying my anatomy to size up the pot? I've been looking at them, wondering what parts you would prepare. The heart, as a testament to romance? Or just a fine cut of meat to savour the taste? I heard genitals are popular with the sexually degenerate.”

“I would like to consume you whole,” said Hannibal quietly. He looked hurt and made no attempt to hide it.

"Swallow my brain and I'll kill you from the inside," said Will, "I'll find a way to make you dance yourself to death."

"What a charming thought, Will. Now eat your food before it gets cold."

But Will had lost his appetite and for the first time he left the table with no mind for manners.


	11. Isolation

They moved to Venice by the end of summer, looking to escape the looming spectres of the law. Hannibal was intent to stay for a couple of months, hunting some memories of his youth, until better weather would return swarms of tourists and make Venice a much less inhabitable place. As of now the city was held firmly in the grasp of acqua alta. Biting winds, winter cold, were blowing water into the lagoon, flooding the city, but inside the city the water was stagnant, the air stood still and in the morning mist drifted through deserted streets. The water stood high on the sidewalks, the ground floors of all buildings were either boarded off or flooded entirely, given up to the sea. It was a tough year. Some Venetians had left for the winter, others had given up entirely. Trash and furniture were commonly seen floating in the murky water. A stale and mouldy smell was everywhere. It felt as if the city was sinking lower each day, just a bloated stinking corpse drifting on the water. 

They lived in a little house not far from the church of San Lorenzo with its peculiar looming façade. The house looked almost abandoned from the outside, but the interior was pristinely renovated, keeping the old structure alive. Fish now lived on the ground floor and Will and Hannibal lived on the first. A long time ago the place had already been constructed with this eventuality in mind. Everything below was designed to withstand the water, tiled floors, metal doors, and some furniture itself cut from stone. There was a tiny garden behind the house, squeezed between high walls. Now it was a square pond with a wooden plank stretching over it. Evergreen ivory, which grew up the walls, reached out of the water like the arms of deep sea creatures and sometimes when Will sat there for a long while, he could see fish move in the water below and he imagined the space below to be much deeper, all the way down to sea floor. Behind closed doors and shutters however, they were only reminded of this extreme situation by the constant noise of water hitting stones and a cold and moistness which creeped even into heated rooms. Or when they looked down the grand entry hall stairway and found it disappearing into the murky water below, a particularly strange sight Will would not grow used to and sought out occasionally.

It was an odd way of living, being in a city, surrounded by people who lived just like them, yet feeling like they were trapped all alone in a lighthouse keeper's cabin or the sinking wreck of a ship. They could come and go, using a little boat or walking along the wooden planks laid out everywhere across the city, but there was nowhere to go; restaurants, cafés, libraries, museums and shops were closed, only churches remained open. Few windows were lit if one ventured out for a walk at night. And Will enjoyed it that way, drifting the day away, all alone or all alone with Hannibal, no guests intruding. He had missed the feeling of being trapped inside, the warmth of an oven nearby, a cup of something hot in hand and reading a book while a storm was raging outside.

It was under this circumstance of isolation that it did not particularly surprise Will when Hannibal asked if he would like to share a room. 

"Why don't you sleep in my room?” said Hannibal at breakfast. He dipped the croissant, which he had slaved away for in the kitchen all morning, in his espresso, and he did not bother to look up, so emphatically casual was his remark. “The guest room is poorly insulated. Each morning I am pleasantly surprised to see you still among the living.”

“I think I am a little more used to cold than the average Italian,” Will said and threw Hannibal a judgemental glance. “If you are trying to get me into your bed, you can just say so.”

“You caught me red handed,” Hannibal said. He raised his hands in playful surrender, enjoying himself thoroughly in the act. “I admit to everything.”

Looking out of the window into the misty grey of the narrow road, Will gave the suggestion some thought. It seemed naturally convenient and not much else beyond that. And he did feel a slight tingle of joy at the thought of not being entirely alone in that cold and unfamiliar room.

“Sure,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On this episode of Hannibal: A Venezia... un Dicembre rosso shocking


End file.
